My Taiwanese American Cultural Ancestry & Heritage
Taiwan's 2024 Election Victory of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of President-Elect Dr. Lai Ching-te and Vice President Hsiao Bi-Khim
I’d love to share some interesting, autobiographical facts about my Taiwanese American cultural ancestry/heritage/history/lineage with you.
I was born and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I've spent my entire life in North Carolina.
My parents were born and raised in Taiwan and spent their childhoods in Taiwan. They graduated high school in Taiwan and moved to the United States in their 20s to pursue better life opportunities. They didn't meet each other until they were in the United States. They dated and got married in Charlotte in the 1980s, and they raised my sister and me in Charlotte, NC.
My father earned an Associate of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Central Piedmont Community College and a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. My mother was a homemaker and stay-at-home mom.
My paternal grandfather Dr. Chen, an active duty surgeon physician, and my paternal grandmother, an active duty critical care nurse, were from Harbin, China, which is located in Heilongjiang province of northeastern China. They belonged to the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) military forces and fought against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War during World War II, a military conflict fought primarily between China and Japan from 1937 to 1945.
It started with the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, a dispute between Chinese and Japanese troops in Beijing, of July 7, 1937, and ended with Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945, following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In China, the war is referred to as the "War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression" because Japan's imperialist policy aimed to dominate China politically and militarily in order to secure its vast raw material reserves and other resources. China fought Japan with aid from the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Nazi Germany before Germany allied with Japan. In Japan, the war is referred to as the "Japan–China War" because of its perceived objectivity.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the war merged with other conflicts of World War II. Some scholars consider the start of the full-scale Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 to have been the beginning of World War II in Asia.
The Second Sino-Japanese War was the largest Asian war in the 20th century. It's been described as the "Asian Holocaust" and accounted for the majority of civilian and military casualties in the Pacific War, with around 20 million Chinese deaths, mostly civilians, and 480,000 Japanese soldiers killed on Chinese soil from war-related violence, famine, and other causes.
My paternal grandparents witnessed many horrific atrocities, massacres, and other war crimes committed against the Chinese military and civilians by the Japanese military and government. My grandparents were members of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) and fled with Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan in 1949 after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s victory in mainland China.
My father's two older sisters were born in mainland China, and my father and his younger brother were born in Taiwan. My father's family immigrated from Taiwan to the United States in the 1980s.
My paternal grandparents always longed to return to, or at least visit, their home country of China; however, they were terrified of the CCP's punishment and retaliation for their participation in the Chinese civil war as KMT. Unfortunately, they were never able to fulfill their dreams of visiting China; they both passed away in Charlotte, NC when I was a child.
My father identifies as Chinese, more conservative/traditional, favors the KMT, and supports Taiwan "unification" with mainland China because of his parents' perspectives/experiences and their ancestry/heritage/history/lineage from mainland China.
My mother identifies as Taiwanese. My mother and her sister (my maternal aunt) immigrated from Taiwan to the United States in the 1980s. My uncle has multiple college degrees including a PhD in Chemical & Environmental Engineering and works as a Professor and Program Director in the Civil & Environmental Engineering Department at UNC-Charlotte.
My maternal family has been in Taiwan for numerous generations, but they're not Taiwanese indigenous people. My mother, her older sister, and her two younger brothers were all born and raised in Taiwan as were both my maternal grandparents and great-grandparents. I'm not sure how far the maternal generations go back in Taiwan.
My maternal grandfather worked as a Chinese medicine doctor in Taiwan; he used traditional Chinese herbs to treat his patients' illnesses/diseases. Most of his patients were poor and destitute; they gave him livestock and crops in exchange for the medical services he provided. My maternal grandmother was a successful real estate broker who helped people sell and buy homes and properties in Taiwan.
Japan ruled Taiwan as a colony from 1895 to 1945 until the surrender of Japan after World War II. Taiwan was Japan's first colony. The Japanese educated the Taiwanese people in Japanese language, customs, and traditions, and they treated the Taiwanese well. Some of my maternal family members speak multiple languages including Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakkanese, Cantonese, Japanese, and English.
My maternal Taiwanese family has fond and tender experiences and memories of Japan and the Japanese people. My maternal family enjoys visiting Japan, speaking the Japanese language, eating Japanese foods, listening to Japanese music, watching Japanese television shows and movies, and practicing Japanese etiquette, customs, traditions, and lifestyle, etc.
Their experiences are very dissimilar to my paternal Chinese family who witnessed the atrocities, massacres, torture, rapes, sexual slavery, chemical and biological attacks, human experimentation, starvation, forced labor, looting, and other war crimes perpetuated against the Chinese by Japanese military and government during the Second Sino-Japanese War of World War II.
My maternal grandmother is the oldest of 10 siblings, so I have many aunts, uncles, and cousins in Taiwan. Many still live in Taiwan, but some have moved to the United States and other countries. They mostly favor the Democratic Progressive Party of Taiwan (DPP) because they support Taiwan's vibrant democracy, freedom, prosperity, peace, stability, sovereignty, and independence from China.
I've spoken to numerous family and friends who live in Taiwan, and they're happy and pleased with the recent election outcome in Taiwan on Saturday, January 13, 2024 with victory by the ruling incumbent DPP's Taiwan President-elect Dr. Lai Ching-te and Vice President Hsiao Bi-Khim. Dr. Lai won with a plurality of 40.05% of the vote and is scheduled to be inaugurated on May 20, 2024.
Dr. Lai champions Taiwan's shining democracy, freedom, sovereignty, independence, and separate identity from China. He rejects China's territorial claims, stands against authoritarianism, and will defend Taiwan from threats, aggression, hostilities, and intimidation from China.
Did you learn anything new about Taiwanese/Chinese/Japanese history/relations/geopolitics from reading this post? Do you have any questions and/or comments? Feel free to share your thoughts and opinions.